Rich Hofmann: Through ups and downs, Eagles' fans passion has rarely wavered
PHILADELPHIA WAS NOT viewed as a good sports town in 1960, not by anyone. The Phillies had never been winners. The Eagles had one short burst of greatness in the late '40s. The A's were gone, the facilities were old and the fans already had a reputation.
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PHILADELPHIA WAS NOT viewed as a good sports town in 1960, not by anyone. The Phillies had never been winners. The Eagles had one short burst of greatness in the late '40s. The A's were gone, the facilities were old and the fans already had a reputation. The most famous incident to that point was at a 1954 A's game, when an outfielder named Gus Zernial, already a fan target for his fielding, broke his shoulder in an attempt to catch a fly ball and was booed by the fans at Connie Mack Stadium as he was carried off on a stretcher.
It is fair to say that, a half-century ago, Philadelphia was a football town by default. There was no competition, not really. The Phillies had abdicated in a competitive sense, never having won a World Series, finishing with a winning record only one time between 1917 and 1949, finishing above third place only once in 43 years. The A's had abdicated in a more literal sense, moving the franchise to Kansas City after the '54 season. The Flyers did not exist and neither did the Sixers - and while the NBA's Warriors were around, and sometimes very successful, pro basketball was viewed more as a curiosity than a pastime.
That left the Eagles and the growing popularity of pro football - but nobody should kid themselves. Until the late '50s, they were drawing about 18,000 fans a game at Connie Mack (which seated 39,000 for football). When they moved to Franklin Field in 1958 - a middle-aged gem by comparison, even if you did have to walk downstairs from the upper deck if you wanted to partake of one of the horse-trough urinals - attendance nearly doubled in a 60,000-seat stadium.
But that was it, until the '60 Eagles were embraced by a city that has never really let go. That team started a bond between a franchise and its fan base that, 5 decades later, seems unshakeable. It has been tested at times, yes, but never broken. Through 50 years without another championship, their devotion is now the stuff of historical fact.
"The loyalty, the passion, and the thirst for football in this city are second to none," said Jeffrey Lurie, the Eagles' owner. "And we've seen that week after week, year after year. On the road, they travel by the thousands. At home, they always provide the 12th man. I have heard from so many fans and they just live and die with this football team. And I'm very proud to be right there with them."
Under Lurie, the Eagles built Lincoln Financial Field, created a waiting list for season tickets in the tens of thousands, and seemed to cement the franchise's hold on its fans. There is nothing like the dominance of the NFL on Sundays in the fall in 2010, and there are few places it is more dominant than here.
But it began in 1960, with a swaggering, demanding quarterback named Norm Van Brocklin, a future Hall of Famer named Chuck Bednarik, who played on both offense and defense, and an unlikely run to a championship.
"I began working in the Eagles' ticket office on a part-time basis beginning in 1960, so I have been someone who has a chance to face the public more than other people," said Leo Carlin, who spent decades as the Eagles' ticket manager and still works for the team. "I think it is just a wonderful football town. We have a tradition here that goes way back. That championship year in 1960 was the springboard, and people became more and more interested in the Philadelphia Eagles. The demand for the team is supreme."
In 1959, the Eagles' home opener at Franklin Field drew only 27,023 against the New York Giants. For the opener in 1960, hopes were higher and attendance was 56,303. Pete Retzlaff, a running back, wide receiver and tight end during his Eagles career, picks up the story.
"When we opened against Cleveland in 1960 and got beat at Franklin Field, the headlines read, 'Here We Go Again.' " Retzlaff said. "Two weeks later, when we played home again against St. Louis, there were 33,000 people in the stands. We were home the following week against Detroit and drew 38,000. And then we went to Cleveland and upset them in the closing seconds on a field goal by Bobby Walston. When we came back and played Pittsburgh a week later, there were close to 60,000 people at Franklin Field - and they have never looked back. So, if I were to pinpoint it, that was when the love affair between the Philadelphia Eagles and the fans began."
Retzlaff's memory is excellent. With barely a blip since then, as Retzlaff said, the fans of Philadelphia really have not looked back. In 1962, a year when the team finished 3-10-1 and Bednarik retired at the end of the season, attendance never fell below 58,000 at Franklin Field. In 1968, the season ended with the infamous snowballs-thrown-at-Santa incident. So much has been written and said about that day, but lost in the conversation might be this trio of most amazing facts: team record, 2-12; wind chill at kickoff, 14 degrees; attendance, 54,530.
Through a stretch of one winning season in 16 years, the numbers really did not vary much. The Eagles had become like a drug for this entirely dependent population.
"I sincerely believe pro football in Philadelphia is the foundation of all the professional sports in the city," said Dick Vermeil, who arrived as the Eagles' coach in 1976 and built toward their first Super Bowl appearance in January of 1981. "It starts there and then blossoms into the Phillies, the Sixers and the Flyers. The foundation of it all is really the Eagles."
It might be more complicated than that, and it might take a psychologist to posit what it all means. Even then, it would just be a fantastic guess.
Why is it that the two most loyal fan bases in town belong to the Eagles and the Flyers, our two most violent professional games? What does that say about us? And what of the notion of the Philadelphia civic inferiority complex - living in the shadow of the financial center of New York and the governmental center of Washington, but without the literary tradition of Boston - and how that inferiority complex somehow embraces the struggle even as it derides the strugglers?
"I still think about coming here in 1976," said quarterback Ron Jaworski, now an ESPN "Monday Night Football'' analyst. "I was really excited to come to Philadelphia. People said, 'Are you crazy? You're in Los Angeles.' I said, 'It was different.' I grew up in Buffalo, a blue-collar, hard-working town, a shot-and-a-beer kind of mentality. LA was Tinseltown. I never kind of felt like I fit.
"I was excited to come to Philadelphia and really find out what a great town it was. I told people I've had my butt booed by 70,000 people, cheered by 70,000 people, many times the same game. You have to understand, they're passionate.
"I remember people saying, 'They can boo you, but they won't let anyone else boo you.' I was one of their own."
There were times along the way when it is fair to say that support did waver, if only a little. But the building of Veterans Stadium, giving the Eagles their first modern facility - and with parking; imagine - was a draw in itself. Vermeil and Jaworski's run to Super Bowl XV, wrapped in the cult of a hard-working team lashed by a relentless coach, was another. Then, following the triple whammy of the early '80s - a bitter players strike in 1982 that resulted in a nine-game season; Vermeil's retirement following that season, burned out; and the three seasons adrift under Vermeil's replacement, Marion Campbell - attendance began to soften. But the hiring of the brash, dynamic Buddy Ryan brought the people back, and brought them back for good.
Through everything since then, through the heights and the seemingly inevitable disappointments, the fans have remained - both in the stands and when counted
by television ratings. It is more than numbers, though. As Eagles safety Quintin Mikell said, "It's just a different feel here. I guess it's the mentality of the people, blue collar, like a going-to-work kind of community. I really feel like they really love football here. It's fun, man."
And here is the thing: No matter the circumstances or the disappointments or the decade or the venue, the moments before a Philadelphia kickoff have remained universal. Even if it is destined to end badly, or booingly, the start is the same. It is always loud and it is always, oddly, hopeful.
As longtime radio broadcaster Merrill Reese said, "I have felt it even during lulls, when the team's fortunes sagged,
under Marion Campbell, Rich Kotite and the final years under Ray Rhodes. But through it all, the seats have been filled, and, at least at the start of every game, the fire was there."
It is part of what makes Philadelphia, well, Philadelphia. It is the enduring legacy of 1960.
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